


Outer Rim’s Best Après-Snowball

by Findswoman



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Family, Hoth (Star Wars), Legends Solo Family, Sibling bickering, Skiing, Snow, Snowball Fight, Winter Family Fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-09 23:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20517905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: Assorted hiemal highjinks with the Solo family, in a familiar location. A much-belated winter fic-gift for Mira_Jade. Thanks to Raissa_Baiard for beta reading.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mira_Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mira_Jade/gifts).
  * Inspired by [we'll take a cup of kindness yet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9164974) by [Mira_Jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mira_Jade/pseuds/Mira_Jade). 

“Snowsnowsnow SNOW SNOW, snowsnowsnow SNOOOOOOOW SNOW, snowsnowsnow SNOOOOOOOW SNOW, snowsnowsnow SNOOOOOOOOOOW…!” (The twins, in exuberant unison, dancing through the corridors of the _Millennium Falcon._)  
  
“Will you two knock it off?! I’m trying to concentrate here!” (Anakin, seated at the dejarik table with some light vacation reading: _Principles of Hypermatter Physics, _17th edition.)  
  
“PHBBBBBBT!” (Jaina, in her little brother’s face.)  
  
“I’ve always wanted to come back here.” (Leia, in the copilot’s seat, gazing out the window at the blue-white orb below.)  
  
That utterance was the only one of the four that made Han spin around in his pilot’s seat aboard the _Falcon._ They now were in orbit over Hoth and had just received docking clearance from that year’s family vacation spot. Han still couldn’t quite process that the massive military installation once known as Echo Base had since, in the years since the founding of the new Republic, been fully restored, renovated, and transformed into the Echo Basin Resort and Ski Lodge.  
  
Yes, the Echo Basin Resort and Ski Lodge. The name still boggled Han’s mind. Nine Hells, why anyone would want to turn that barren iceball into a vacation spot was beyond him. And yet it had somehow had managed to become a galactically acclaimed destination for skiing, snowboarding, and various other wintertime recreations. And it was widely reputed to have the Outer Rim’s best après-ski. Han was pretty sure, however, that he was going to spend much more time après-skiing than actual skiing.  
  
So his question to his wife was a simple one: “Why?”  
  
“Oh, the memories, mostly,” she replied, still in a sigh. “We went through a lot here, you and I. It’s where we got our start.”  
  
Han leaned back and shrugged. That much was true. “Well, yeah.”  
  
“And back on Alderaan my parents used to take us skiing in the Juran Mountains each winter.” She laughed a little in reminiscence. “Ironically, Winter was the only one who hated it.”  
  
Han just smiled in reply. He didn’t blame Winter one bit.  
  
“So I figured, now that it’s open to the public, and now that the younglings are old enough, why not?”  
  
Just then a series of sounds arose from the common area: a succession of loud PHBBBBBBTs, followed by a BIFF, followed by a THUD, followed by a blood-curdling “OWWWWW!! HEY!!” Jaina and Anakin’s impromptu zoochberry-blowing competition had apparently been broken up by a large stuffed bantha that had just been Force-hurled in their direction by Jacen. He was now zoochberrying his sister and younger brother simultaneously as they lay crumpled in a heap on the edge of the acceleration couch.  
  
Han chuckled. Whatever his own feelings about winter and snow and skiing, one thing was for sure: snow-covered slopes were probably a better place for absorbing large quantities of youthful energy than the _Falcon_’s common area.  
  
“Yeah, indeed,” he chuckled. “Why not?”

* * *

The first several days at Echo Basin Resort passed happily and without problems. Thanks to the weather modification net now installed over the compound, atmospheric conditions were perfect the entire time: cold enough to keep everything snowy but not so cold as to be unbearable. The younglings took well to skiing, or at least two of the three of them; Jacen wiped out several times after trying to depend solely on the Force (and not also his ski poles) to propel him down the slope. He declined to try snowboarding the day after and was much happier the day they visited the tauntaun corral. There Jaina, in turn, spent the entire time complaining about the smell (and threw her father a what-are-you-talking-about look when he reminded her that they smelled much worse on the inside). There was snow-fortress building, snow-being building, snowshoeing through the valley, and an impromptu snow-Diathim competition, judged by Leia and declared a three-way tie. Through it all, Jacen regaled everyone with facts about the local wildlife (“did you know that wampas are matriarchal and form mating cohorts of twelve to fourteen individuals each?”), and Jaina regaled everyone with facts about the latest snowspeeder technology from the Incom Corporation (“Ooh, look, there’s one of the new T-49-Qs! Did you know it’s got a maximum speed of 1250 km/h and is equipped with _three_ forward miniquad cannons and _two_ Ubrikkian Model K harpoon launchers!”). Anakin mostly just let it all wash over him. Han, for his own part, was always glad to return to the lodge to enjoy a nice Whyren’s-and-chocolate in front of a roaring fire.  
  
But on the whole he couldn’t deny that the vacation was going well. The younglings were certainly doing a bang-up job getting all that energy out. The more of that happened out here and the less of it on the _Falcon,_ all the better.  
  
Then, on the fifth evening or so, they were all warming themselves in the lodge after a long day on the slopes. Anakin was reading his book, the twins were engaged in a lively game of Ecumenopoly, and Leia, sitting beside Han on the large, cushion-covered couch, wondered aloud: “Do you think the underground river is still here?”  
  
It was a completely understandable thing for her to wonder about. Han knew exactly which underground river she meant: the one flowing deep beneath the base, nestled in the planet’s bedrock and fed by rich, warm mineral springs, where he had once found her lighting and floating tiny candles in memory of her lost homeworld, in observance of the Alderaanian holiday called the Day of Remembrances. She had let him light and launch a candle of his own, in memory of his adoptive Wookiee mother, Dewlanna, and they had shared a commemorative toast afterward. But—  
  
“—wait, didn’t we just celebrate the Day of Remembrances?” Han asked, baffled. “Back at Coruscant Park? Anakin dropped the bag of candles into the pond and the twins had to… levitate them back or whatever?”  
  
“Yes, of course,” Leia laughed. “And the angry flock of ducks that Jacen had to calm. How could I forget?” She cast a glance over to where her children were occupying themselves happily in front of the fireplace. “No, I’m just curious to see if it’s still there, what with all the new development at all. The resort management would probably frown on my trying any funny business with _candles,_ anyway.”  
  
“Hey, sweetheart, you’re the head of state now. They’ll let you do anything you want.”  
  
“Hardly.”  
  
Han shrugged (as always). “Well, I guess you could ask at the desk.”  
  
“That’s what I shall do.”  
  
They were silent for a few minutes. Han sipped his Whyren’s-and-chocolate and nestled closer to his wife, enjoying the warmth of the fire, of her next to him, of the cheer and contentment radiating from his children at their various pursuits and from all the visitors who were enjoying a warm, cozy time in this warm, cozy place. And then he spoke the words he would regret later:  
  
“Y’know, if it’s still there and they let you down there, I can watch the younglings.”  
  
Leia’s smile lit up the room as she turned to him and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, dear, that’s very sweet of you,” she said. “But be careful of what you offer to do. You might have to actually do it.”  
  
“Hey,” Han smiled back and returned the kiss. “It’s me.”  
  
_to be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

The underground river still was indeed still there, Leia learned the next day. The resort desk manager—a very large, very friendly female Whiphid whose name tag read “Saneeth,” with “Toola, Kaelta System” in smaller type below—conducted Leia down to it personally. Han gave her a jaunty wave as she and her guide disappeared down the basement corridor. So far so good, he figured—his wife would have a nice chunk of the day to herself, exploring and reminiscing, and he and the younglings would simply head out to the lifts for yet another fun day on the slopes.  
  
It soon became clear, however, that that would be no means as easy or as pleasant as it sounded. A fairly substantial snowstorm had managed to get through the weather modification net overnight, and the winds were so high that they knocked out power to the repulsorfield generators powering the lifts. As a result, in order to get out to the slopes, one had to rent either a tauntaun or one of the snowspeeders, and the facilities for both were located at some distance offsite. So even though there would be a good bit of extra, fresh snow for skiing and boarding, the Solos were going to have to spend some time tramping through it if they wanted to get to the actual skiing and boarding. Some was still falling, not heavily but still steadily.  
  
And while Anakin would gladly have spent the day in the lodge curled up with his book, he was roundly overruled by his elder siblings—or at least by one of them.  
  
“I’m not spending the whole day playing Ecumenopoly with Jacen,” sniffed Jaina. “He cheats.”  
  
Anakin threw up his hands. “Then play Novacrown or Tactego with him instead!”  
  
“He’d just cheat at those, too!”  
  
“What else was I supposed to do?!” Jacen blustered. “You had, like, fifteen orbital stations on Empress Teta and Coruscant!”  
  
“Then you could have mortgaged something!”  
  
“ALL RIGHT, YOU THREE,” Han interposed. “Knock it off. We’re gonna head out to the slopes, somehow, someway, and we’re gonna enjoy it, got that?”  
  
“But Da-ad!”  
  
“No ‘but Dads,’ Ani. There’s no way I’m gonna let myself be cooped up in the lodge with you three all day. I’d go spare.” Three youthful sighs went up, as though acknowledging the justice of this statement. “Now c’mon. Get your gear on and let’s get going.”

* * *

So they got their gear on and got going. And naturally, while tramping across the spacious resort grounds through the plentiful and steadily accumulating snow, the question arose of which conveyance they would choose for the day’s trip to the slopes. Jacen was the first to come forward with a preference.  
  
“Tauntaun. Definitely tauntaun.”  
  
“Eww, no,” remonstrated his sister. “It was bad enough just being in the corral with those horrible, stinky things. There’s no way anyone’s making me get _on _one.”  
  
“Plus, Dad, didn’t you have one freeze on you that time?” asked Anakin.  
  
“Yep, sure did.” Han’s eyes turned upward in reminiscence. “When I went out to rescue your Uncle Luke during the war.”  
  
“Oh yeah! That’s right! And it was a really bad snowstorm, right? And you had to cut it open and stuff Uncle Luke inside with all the blood and guts and—”  
  
“EWWWWW!” Jaina left her opinion of the matter in no doubt.  
  
Jacen rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Jaya, you’re such a wimp.”  
  
After a few more minutes of trudging, they reached the boundary wall of the resort grounds. A maintenance turret, with a blast door emblazoned EMPLOYEES ONLY set in its base, bulged out in front of them, and in front of it the main pathway (or what they could see of it in the steadily building snow) branched off in two directions.  
  
“All right, kids,” Han announced. “Time to decide what we’re gonna do, because the tauntauns are _that _way and the speeders are _that_ way.”  
  
Jacen spoke up. “Okay, so guys, the tauntaun freezing thing? Like, definitely_ not _going to happen.”  
  
“And you’re so sure of this _how?_” rejoined his sister.  
  
“Well, Dad, that happened at _nighttime,_ right, Dad?” Han nodded. “Well, so, the tauntaun is uniquely adapted to survive Hoth’s _daytime_ temperatures, so—”  
  
“Yeah, well, so’s the Incom T-49-Q. And it’s a _lot_ faster. And we’d only have to rent _one._”  
  
Jacen scowled. “You never _did _have any appreciation for the Living Force.”  
  
“I appreciate the Living Force just fine! Just not when it smells like the ’fresher at a Hutt Space transport station!” Jaina loomed in her twin’s face. “Which, sorry not sorry, it does most of the time!”  
  
Jacen fixed his sister with a smoldering glare. “That’s disrespectful, you know.”  
  
“Pffft, you think I care?! You can take your Living Force and STUFF IT!”  
  
“WHY YOU—”  
  
Several things happened at once. Anakin burst into nervous giggles. Han rolled his eyes and attempted a rather ineffectual “All right, you two.” And Jacen, teeth gritted and eyes still smoldering, and motioned with his hand out toward the snowy landscape...  
  
FWAPP! In a single moment wad of snow rose from the ground, coagulated into something like a ball, sailed through the air, and hit Jaina squarely in the face.  
  
“YOU—YOU BANTHA BRAIN!” And she, too, flung her hand out over the snow, sending another snowball flying through the air to hit Jacen on the forehead. Jacen, unfazed, raised both hands to summon two snowballs in Jaina’s direction—when a sudden gust of wind sent one of them flying straight at Anakin’s ear.  
  
“Hey! Stop that!” yelled Anakin, sending a snowball of his own flying at Jacen, who in turn sent one back at his younger brother—  
  
BIFF! BAFF! POFF! PFFFT! WHAM! For several minutes snowballs went whizzing through the already powdery air, lent extra speed and intensity by the Force. All Han’s attempts to restore order were fruitless; the best he could do was try to dodge out of the way of the flying snow, occasionally muttering things like “oh, for the—” and “this is ridiculous.” On and on on the chaos went—PIFF! PAFF! BOFF! WHUMPH! SPLATT!—until there was one final, supreme THWAPP!, followed by—  
  
“What’s going on here?!”  
  
All four Solos spun around at the sound of a very familiar voice. For the diminutive, stern-faced, Human figure that had just emerged from the metal door of the maintenance turret—and at that same moment received a face full of snow—was none other than Leia Organa Solo herself.  
  
“Er, hi, Mom,” Jaina began in tentative tones. “We weren’t expecting you…”  
  
“I see that,” Leia replied, exuding unmistakable maternal authority even as she brushed snow from her face. “Now would someone kindly explain what this is all about?”  
  
Anakin piped up. “OK, so my _twin siblings here_ were just trying to decide whether to rent a speeder or tauntauns to get out to the slopes—”  
  
“By Force-throwing snowballs at each other.” Leia cocked her head incredulously as she turned toward the twins, who just shuffled their feet sheepishly in the snow. “And have you come to a decision yet?”  
  
“Yes,” announced Jacen. “We decided tauntauns.”  
  
“No, we _didn’t!_”  
  
“YES, WE DID!” growled Jacen, thrusting his hand out over the snow again.  
  
“HEY! ENOUGH, ALL RIGHT?!” Han stepped between the twins, and Jacen dropped his hand. “Tell you what. Let’s let your mother decide.”  
  
“But Dad!” came two preteen voices almost simultaneously.  
  
“_Let’s let your mother decide,_” Han repeated through gritted teeth.  
  
Leia took a deep breath in and looked around at her three breathless, flush-cheeked, and still largely snow-covered children. “_Aurek,_” she began, “it looks to me like you all have had enough excitement for one day. _Besh_”—she put an arm around Han—“your father has _definitely _had enough excitement for the day. He’s not getting any younger, you know.” (“Hey!” he interjected.) “_Cresh,_ look how the snow is picking up. So I say we go back to the lodge and relax in front of a nice fire.”  
  
There was silence for a moment as her family looked at each other, considering this.  
  
“Well, what do you say?” Leia said again. “We can always come back out to the slopes tomorrow. The lifts will probably be fixed, and we’ll have some nice fresh powder.”  
  
The twins looked at each other, then looked at her and shrugged an “Okay.” Han heaved a barely disguised sigh of relief. And, as the five Solos began to make their way back along the snow-thick main path, Anakin allowed himself a silent fist pump.

* * *

Later, back at the lodge, the Solo family rested around a large, merrily crackling fire. Jacen and Jaina were immersed in a game of Tactego on the floor, Anakin was curled up in a large armchair with _Principles of Hypermatter Physics, _17th edition, and Han and Leia were once again nestled together on the sofa, sipping hot drinks—Leia a decadent whip-topped Corellian caf, and Han his customary Whyren’s-and-chocolate.  
  
“So, how was the river?” Han asked presently.  
  
“It was wonderful,” Leia replied. “Just as I remembered it, with the blue side pools and the green and red mineral jets and all the crystals everywhere. And you were right, Saneeth let me bring a candle to float.”  
  
Han put an arm around her. “Told you they’d let you do anything you wanted.”  
  
“Well, just _one_ candle,” Leia replied with a chuckle. “One of those little tea lights from the lounge. There’s still the Republic Fire Code and all that. But oh, Han, it was so beautiful, the way it lit up all the colors in the pools and the crystals on the walls… Someday we’ll have to take the younglings down there, you know.”  
  
“Yeah, someday.” Han took a swig of his drink. “Emphasis on _someday. _I’ve had enough youngling chaos for… oh, a good Standard year or two.”  
  
“Oh, it would be fine. No ducks down there.” They shared a brief laugh of reminiscence, then Leia continued. “But seriously, Han, they’re good kids—you know they are. Look at them playing so calmly and so nicely—”  
  
Just then a loud “WOOHOO! PAR-TAY!” went up from Jaina, followed by an equally loud “SITHSPIT!” from Jacen, one of whose Battalion Commanders had just walked right into one of her Ion Mines. “But that was a Corporal!” he insisted. “I _know_ that was a Corporal!”  
  
“Looks like the Force wasn’t so strong with you after all, CHEA-TER!” (Jaina’s retort.)  
  
“YOU GUYS! I’m trying to CONCENTRATE HERE!” (Anakin, looking darkly up from his physics equations.)  
  
“PHBBBBBBT!” (The twins, simultaneously, in their little brother’s direction.)  
  
Han and Leia smiled and snuggled together on the sofa—Han kissing his wife’s head, Leia nestling onto her husband’s shoulder, and both relishing each other’s warmth in the firelight. There might not have been any skiing that day—nor any speeders or tauntauns either—but they knew for a fact that there was no better après anywhere in the Galaxy.  
  
**the end**

**Author's Note:**

> “Snowsnowsnow SNOW SNOW….”: See if you can guess what the twins are singing at the start. ;)
> 
> The transformation of Echo Base into Echo Basin Resort and Ski Lodge is purely fanon. Why shouldn’t skiing and snowboarding exist in the GFFA too? :p
> 
> Juran Mountains: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Juran_Mountains. You know there has to be skiing there, because it’s almost the same name as the Jura Mountains in Switzerland. ;)
> 
> Diathim: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Diathim. Also known as Angels, so a snow-Diathim is… get it?
> 
> T-49-Q: The snowspeeder we know from ESB is the T-47, so I’m just extrapolating about future models and generally pulling technobabble out of my ear. Ditto with the business about wampas’ mating cohorts.
> 
> “where he had once found her lighting and floating tiny candles . . . Day of Remembrances”: This location and this custom are from Mira_Jade’s own wonderful fanon, borrowed with gratitude from her poignant and beautiful [“we’ll take a cup of kindness yet.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9164974) I couldn’t have the Solo family go to Hoth without in some way recalling the events of this gorgeous story.
> 
> Coruscant Park: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Coruscant_Park. I looked up “parks on Coruscant,” and, well, this one was exactly what it said on the tin.
> 
> Whiphid: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Whiphid. This is the species of J’Quille from Jabba’s Palace; their homeworld, Toola (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Toola/Legends, which is indeed in the Kaelta System), is another winterlocked world. Saneeth’s name tag is based on Earth hotel employee name tags that show the person’s name and the city or country they come from.
> 
> Novacrown: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Novacrown
> 
> Once again, the underground river on Hoth and its features are borrowed with immense gratitude from Mira_Jade’s [“we’ll take a cup of kindness yet.”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9164974) Thank you, Mira, for letting them be part of this story as well.


End file.
